Should your lawyer have more empathy than brains?

My son recently joined medical school, and was given his first “patient” to diagnose. The students are graded not only on the correct medical diagnosis, but also on bed side manners. His “patient” (these are actually actors that med schools hire) presented herself with chest pain. After this experience my son asked me, whether if I was having chest pain, I wanted the doctor to say “everything will be alright” even though the doctor knows I may not. ie do I want a doctor to be sympathetic or do I want to hear the truth?

My answer to my son was that even though I don’t need the hand holding, because I am a very strong person, I’m sure most people do. ie, Hold their hand and break the bed news as gently as you can, but don’t hide the news.

Which is what a lot of unscrupulous lawyers do not do. I know many lawyers will promise clients the moon. Since I practice immigration law, I will keep my examples to immigration issues only.

When a client goes to a lawyer, a lot of lawyers lie—- no surprises here. “yes we can get that done”, “yes, we have done thousands of these.” These lawyers are very friendly, have the greatest bed side manners. Yet when they get the denials, they sound very sincere when they say, “i don’t know why CIS denied your case.” Any good lawyer knows what case is going to be approved and what case is going to be denied. Yet they do not refuse to take the case knowing they will get money to work for it.

Also just because a case can be filed, does not mean it should be filed. For instance, you can file a labor certification (PERM) for almost anyone. But if the next step, ie the I-140 does not go through, the PERM is useless. Same is true for certain family filings. Yet unscrupulous lawyers take the case, and the money to file the case.

Same is true for doctors. Both can be equally sweet and equally deceptive.

Yet clients, (and patients) choose doctors and lawyers by asking their friends, and by their professional’s bed side manner rather than objectively by their education and wisdom. If you want someone to hold your hands and cry with you, get a friend. If you want your doctor and lawyer to represent your interest, choose one who went to a good school, does not have any disciplinary violations, and is sincere in his efforts. Generally foreign doctors and lawyers are less qualified simply because its easy to get into law schools and med schools in most countries. In India for instance the top students are engineers. Lawyers and most people in Humanities are at the bottom of the IQ heap.

In the end you are a consumer, and you have to do your due diligence or be duped.